SoftBank has offloaded shares of U.S. tech giants like Facebook, Microsoft, Alphabet and Netflix, consistent with its latest financial report released on Tuesday.
The Tokyo-headquartered conglomerate invests in publicly listed shares through its SB Northstar trading unit and provides a breakdown of the unit’s portfolio companies in its quarterly results.
Facebook, Microsoft, Alphabet and Netflix were included in SB Northstar’s portfolio at the top of March but were absent from the list at the top of the April-June quarter, suggesting a discount or an entire offload in holdings.
At the top of March, SoftBank had $3.1 billion of Facebook shares, $1 billion of Microsoft shares, $575 million of Alphabet shares and $382 million of Netflix shares. But all four were unlisted in its June report.
SoftBank reduced the dimensions of its stake in Amazon from $6.2 billion to $5.6 billion, consistent with the filings.
In total, SB Northstar held stakes in firms worth $13.6 billion at the top of June, down from $19 billion at the top of March.
A SoftBank spokesperson pointed CNBC to the filings when asked about the offload of tech stocks, but declined to comment further.
Last September, the Financial Times reported that SoftBank was the mystery “Nasdaq whale” buying billions of dollars in call options — which back stocks rising.
The report quoted a source saying SoftBank had been snapping up options in major tech names like Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix, potentially driving up valuations within the sector. SoftBank declined to discuss the report at the time.
SoftBank’s overall net income for its fiscal half-moon fell 39% year on year to 762 billion Japanese yen ($6.9 billion) as Chinese regulators cracked down on Alibaba, its biggest bet, and other companies within the portfolio like Didi.
The SoftBank Vision Fund, a fanatical tech investment fund, posted a $2.1 billion profit as companies within the portfolio listed on stock markets.
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